“Whatever services we give, ultimately it has to be a win-win situation.... We just want a commercially viable model, I cannot afford to lose month after month,” State Bank of India (SBI) chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said in an interview.

SBI is having the largest network of ATMs.

Bhattacharya also said barring in a few states, the ATM operations are making losses. She did not name the states where the ATM segment is making money.

She said SBI cannot subsidise ATMs forever. “The loss from ATMs is very concerning. I would like to roll out many more ATMs. I am ready to do that, but I need to explain also how I am going to sustain this,” she said.

When asked about the industry demand that customers be charged for ATM services, especially after the push in costs of ATMs after the Bangalore incident wherein a woman was attacked inside the ATM kiosk, she said SBI supports the idea of charging even its own customers.

“If you are looking at extending the ATM network and making it available to more people, there has to be a commercially viable model,” she said. SBI had an ATM network of 32,777 as of September 2013 and has already announced aggressive plans of expansion. The finance ministry had mandated that each state-run bank would have an adjoining ATM in place by the end of the current fiscal.

RBI to study proposal for limiting free ATM transactions

The RBI will consider reducing the number of free ATM withdrawals, as recommended by Indian Banks' Association, in an effort to cut down on cash transactions in the economy. “We will examine that (IBA recommendation of cutting down number of free ATM transaction to 5 per month). Many other proposals have come. The whole idea is that people are using too much of cash and adding to the costs. We’ll examine the issue,” RBI deputy governor H R Khan said.